All posts filed under: Sewing

Things I sew – historical and modern

The Playcation dress

I’ve been working on the Truly Victorian 1900s S bend corset all this week , and by Saturday it became obvious that it was not.going.well. Along the lines of – “I’ve let out ever seam 1/4” of an inch, and the thing is still 2″ too small for me!” not going well ( a couple of other bloggers have mentioned their corsets were far too small in passing, so I suspect an overall issue with the pattern’s smaller sizes and the fact that our body type is going to have a much higher immovable bone to moveable squish ratio, especially with the ribcage, that isn’t accounted for in the patterns sizing and shaping). So I threw the corset in the corner in disgust and had a sad. Then lifted my chin, threw back my shoulders, and fished out a piece of striped black and ivory viscose knit I’d found in the Fabric Warehouse $5 bin during their 40% off sale, and whipped up a simple two piece summer dress on my overlocker. No pattern, no …

Modern historical kimono wrappers

Published by The Dreamstress

I know I already have two submissions for the Historical Sew Fortnightly ‘Modern History’ challenge, but I’m quite excited about showing you two more items, because they are my only HSF sewing collaboration for 2014, and they are also a far more interesting take on interpreting historical fashions for modern wear in any case. These are Lynne’s modern historical kimono wrappers: Lynne took the pattern from an original Japanese yukata, but altered it to fit her figure and lifestyle: flaring the body panels for extra width, and adding underarm and shoulder reinforcements. She did all the unpicking of curtain panels, fabric prepping, pattern drafting and cutting of the pieces (i.e. the hard part, where you have to think and probably end up, if not swearing a lot, at least muttering dire imprecation), and I sewed up the kimono on a week-long visit just before Christmas, sitting at a sewing table in her bedroom, watching the birds outside and kittens on the computer and cthunk, cthunk, cthunking along on her lovely Bernina. Lynne is an extremely …

The ‘Amazon Queen’ pair of bodies

Published by The Dreamstress

Despite being a self-confessed magpie, I’ve gone for something quite subtle for the ‘All that Glitters’ HSF challenge: a pair of bodies (Elizabethan stays/corset) in gilt linen. The linen is the same fabric that I used for my 1770s silver linen stays, because I have a LOT of that linen, and couldn’t find a single other piece of fabric in stash that said ‘make me into a pair of bodies’. Sometimes you just have to listen to the fabric. So now I own two historical corsets in gilt linen. Gilt linen is a slightly dubious fabric choice for a 16th c. pair of bodies, but I’ve made these as a very nice working toile (I’ve even, gasp.shock.horror, used metal grommets for the back lacing), so I’m OK with a bit of inaccuracy. And they do look rather smashing in it! When I tried the mostly-completed pair of bodies on I realised that 1) I actually really love them (I had extreme doubts about Elizabethan fashion in the first place, and the un-boned bust sections of …